Radio silence: Trump’s fund cuts gift Kim Jong-un a tighter grip on North Korea’s ‘mind apartheid’

In the world’s hermit kingdom, the rulers appear anything but hermits — the face allegations of relentlessly hounding their hapless citizens in a, what many describe as, barbaric fashion, crushing human rights as a hippopotamus crushes a watermelon: with brute force and no second thought.

While the rest of the world thrives fighting for greater and unrestricted access to information, those in North Korea are understood to live under an apartheid of the mind, cut off from realities of the world, deliberately by a regime that distorts or blocks information to suit its grip on power.

For many in North Korea, the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia stood as rare lifelines — vital sources of uncensored news for the bold few willing to risk everything to tune in. But that’s now a thing of the past.

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In a Maga move, US President Donald Trump — who once claimed he “developed a very good relationship” with the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un — pulled the plug from these radio services.

A switch in DC, silence in Pyongyang

When the US Senate passed a funding cut earlier this month, it effectively ended decades of American support for independent media channels that had managed to pierce North Korea’s ironclad information barrier. The decision prompted widespread alarm as it became obvious that this move could plunge North Korea’s 26 million citizens into even deeper informational darkness, a report in South China Morning Post said.

Broadcasts from the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia — two long-standing American-backed radio channels — had served as vital channels, providing North Koreans with unfiltered insights into global affairs, human rights and life beyond their tightly controlled borders. The radio programmes reportedly saw their broadcasts reduced by as much as 80 per cent after an executive order issued by Trump in March called for the dismantling of their parent agency, the United States Agency for Global Media, the Hing Kong-based newspaper reported.

Silence after the signal

North Korea experts, including Human Rights Watch’s Teppei Kasai, expressed concern that this informational blackout would hinder international awareness of North Korea’s worsening human rights situation.

According to Martyn Williams, a senior fellow at the Stimson Centre, the timing could not have been better for Pyongyang’s censors. In his analysis for 38 North, he observed that North Korean propagandists had been battling the flow of foreign broadcasts for decades.

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Suddenly, with no effort on their part, the playing field had tilted decisively in their favour, the South China Morning Post reported.

From unity to discord

The blow to North Korea-focussed media and human rights efforts didn’t occur in a vacuum. For nearly two decades, the North Korean Human Rights Act had anchored America’s engagement with the country on a bipartisan basis.

Passed in 2004 and renewed in subsequent years, the legislation ensured funding for radio broadcasts, satellite analysis and human rights documentation. These efforts informed everything from US sanctions policy to United Nations reports on crimes against humanity.

However, that act quietly expired in 2022. Though funding had temporarily continued through the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour (DRL), recent cuts proposed by the Trump administration aim to all but eliminate DRL’s global funding.

Human rights advocates have warned that this move will not only gut existing projects but destroy the infrastructure and institutional expertise necessary to rebuild them later, senior Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch Lina Yoon wrote in Foreign Policy in Focus.

Real-world consequences

The stakes go far beyond theoretical policy losses. Civil society organisations once supported by the act are now struggling to survive. Groups like the Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights, which had previously traced illicit financial networks tied to North Korea’s cyber theft operations, are at risk of shuttering.

The DailyNK, a Seoul-based newsroom that reports using sources inside North Korea, may soon fall silent.

Similarly, the Transitional Justice Working Group, known for its geocoding of execution and burial sites using scapee testimony and satellite imagery, may no longer be able to continue its work, Lina wrote. She feared that cutting off these data sources would severely compromise the US government’s ability to make informed policy decisions.

A regional reversal

Compounding the problem, the recently elected South Korean administration under President Lee Jae-myung has reportedly taken a softer stance toward Pyongyang.

In addition to ending government-led broadcasts into the North, Seoul has banned activists from launching balloons containing leaflets, rice, medicine and cash across the demilitarised zone.

Human rights observers noted that while this strategy may aim for diplomatic rapprochement, it simultaneously weakens the already scarce flow of outside information into North Korea.

Williams from the Stimson Centre told South China Morning Post that the reduced broadcasts would leave North Koreans even more cut off from both local and global events. In a deteriorating security climate, such isolation could come at a high price, not only for North Koreans but for neighbouring countries and allies relying on accurate, timely intelligence.

Why the world should pay attention

The broader message from policy analysts and human rights organisations is clear: supporting independent media in North Korea is not charity — it’s strategy, said Lina. And yet, the Trump administration’s broad-stroke cuts threaten to erase years of painstaking progress.

Organisations holding DRL grants, including the Unification Media Group and the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, may soon have no funds left to continue.

Radio Free Asia has already ceased its Korean-language broadcasts, a move that could embolden Pyongyang’s censors and silence dissident voices before they ever reach the airwaves.

A future in the dark?

Unless the US Congress takes urgent action to renew the North Korean Human Rights Act and protect funding for programmes that monitor and expose the regime’s abuses, the world could lose its last windows into the country. As one expert put it, North Korea thrives in the dark. And with Washington now dimming the light, the shadows are growing longer.